Stop-the-Pop-Up Lite

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Editors' Review

This program blocks annoying pop-up windows with a splash. Stop-the-Pop-Up Lite installs so quickly that you won't even notice it happening. Once you launch the freeware, you face a tiny number of choices. All you can do is disable the freeware, set it to launch automatically at Windows start-up, and enable the aggressive mode. The button marked Advanced Settings leads only to a nag screen that says that those features do not exist in the Lite version. In general, though, the program works well. When a pop-up emerges, the program immediately destroys it. The program excels even at counteracting file-sharing networks such as Kazaa and Morpheus. Home users could do much worse than the serviceable Stop-the-Pop-Up Lite.

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Publisher's Description

Stop-the-Pop-Up Lite is a free pop-up blocker preventing all annoying pop-up windows from appearing as you surf the Web. The pop-up stopper has full support for both pop-up and pop-under ads and will kill them even before they appear on the screen. Each time a pop-up is closed you will hear a cute sound effect. To allow pop-up windows, you can temporarily disable the pop-up killer by holding Control, Shift, or 'a'. Another Stop-the-Pop-Up Lite feature is its ability to kill all pop-ups from file-sharing programs as well as from the spyware and adware that is bundled with these peer-to-peer programs. Stop-the-Pop-Up Lite supports Kazaa, Kazaa Lite, Morpheus, Grokster, iMesh, Xolox, and Direct Connect.

Stop-the-Pop-Up Lite also will kill the new breed of pop-ups called Messenger Service spam. Messenger Service pop-ups can spam you even when your browser is closed. Stop-the-Pop-Up Lite recognizes and kills hostile ActiveX controls from companies known to develop spyware or adware.

Very easy to install, works as advertised on most pop-ups, and requires no afterthought -- definitely a fire-and-forget type of program.

Cons

It doesn't get all pop-ups.

Summary

This website http://www.kephyr.com/popupkillertest/index.html?source=stpltest tests the functionality of pop-up killers, and Stop-the-Pop-Up Lite 2.56 kills 80%-90% of the various pop-up types. But it appears there is no pop-up killer that gets 100% of them, so I am happy with this program that gets most of them easily for free.

A couple of notes regarding previous comments. First, the instructions are petty straightforward. The first time it killed a window I was trying to open, I looked through the manual, read again how to bypass the program with ctl+shift, and never had a problem again. Second, I don't think it installs any spyware or adware. Just because ad-aware identifies something as adware does not necessarily mean it is adware -- it means the program shares some of the same characteristics as adware, characteristics the ad-aware program is looking for. That's why adware and spyware programs usually have a disclaimer telling you to be sure you don't need something before deleting it after you run a search. I don't know with certainty there is no adware, but until I see definitive proof that Stop-the-Pop-Up Lite 2.56 actually installs adware, I'm not going to worry about it.

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